The Soul of Mali
Toumani Diabaté, playing The Mandé Variations
Presented by the World Music Institute
at the Skirball Ctr, New York University
It isn't likely that one musician with one instrument can hold the attention
of an audience for 75 minutes, but Toumani Diabaté, playing the kora,
does more than that. He enchants us; we lose a sense of time. He plays with
extraordinary subtlety, reflecting a range of delicate emotions.
The kora looks like a large pumpkin with a vertical neck like a guitar. It has
22 strings in two parallel rows. The strings aren't flat against the wood; they
line up moving away from it, so the 11th string is ten times further from the
wood than is the first. The artist sat behind it, in a gorgeous white kaftan.
Diabaté comes from a family of Malian griot musicians. He's contributed
greatly to creating a musical identity for Mali and to the recognition of the
kora as a solo instrument. While his work is firmly rooted in the Mali tradition,
it acknowledges the influence of other genres, some modern. But it never sounds
like it's been compromised.
We might call this music a type of jazz - it isn't written down. "My music
is from 700 years ago," he tells us. He opened with a song like a joyous
waterfall, and moved on to a moody piece, with a subtle, bittersweet sense of
loss. Sometimes he uses a steady treble beat, with a contrapuntal lead and an
occasional low note on the beat, a reminder of The Constant Presence. Sometimes
there are crescendos that splash like a brook on a rock. The riffs escape from
the limitations of beat, and narrow to a flood of single notes.
A singer, Baila Soumano, joined him for only the last song, wearing a print-on-black
robe with a white headpiece. Her singing is astounding. Her voice sometimes
has tripping patter, and sometimes sounds like a glottal adhan. It's unmistakably
related to the enchanting African chorus singing that defies time by refusing
to finish; it establishes itself, repeats, and only stops after stating that
it's eternal.
What an enormous contribution the World Music Institute makes in bringing us
work like this!
Steve Capra
11/08